The London Data Week at Kings College London introduced me to the developing field of “Critical AI Literacy”.
Why develop Critical AI Literacy? Because the UK government’s attempts to equip the population with AI literacy is considered disappointing. In particular, the quality of the Government’s free AI training to upskill 30 million workers by 2030 is considered poor. Prevailing industry driven frameworks of AI literacy simply treat AI technologies as a set of neutral tools to maximise productivity and efficiency.
Civil society has stepped up and has developed Critical AI literacy as a necessary corrective. It situates AI as a sociotechnical assemblage shaped by political, economic, environmental, and cultural forces. It highlights the need to interrogate the assumptions embedded in the very term “artificial intelligence” (let’s face it – when you break it down, the term was selected as a branding exercise and the technology is neither “artificial” nor “intelligent”).
Critical AI literacy resists techno deterministic narratives and equips stakeholders to recognise when refusal or resistance to AI is both valid and necessary. It also equips stakeholders to recognise AI hype – the overinflation and misrepresentation of AI capabilities and performance.
To paraphrase an accepted working definition of Critical AI Literacy: “an ongoing practice of reflection and action through which individuals and communities question and evaluate AI systems and the conditions that give rise to them. As a result of informed analysis, they are well equipped to choose whether to use, resist, transform or refuse them” (Pusceddu C 2026)
Some key takeaways from London Data Week
- Look at critical AI literacy through decolonial perspectives – question the power dynamics: who holds the power? Who benefits? Who bears the cost?
- The government is encouraging teacher facing use in schools for planning, admin and marking though they are treating pupil facing with more caution.
- The Government’s big push on AI in general is likely to be the outworking of austerity more than anything else.
- GOV.UK has produced useful product safety standards.
- The PSHE Association may in due course make critical AI Literacy available to schools – but only those schools that request this.
- weandai.org is an organisation developing Critical AI Literacy for the underserved.
- The Critical AI Literacy Library will soon release a free to access collective of learning and teaching resources and frameworks.
- The Open University will also soon release their Critical AI Literacy resource.
- Gov.UKs AI Playbook is worth looking at. It offers guidance on using AI safely, effectively and securely for civil servants and people working in government organisations.